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His Royal Highness the Duke of Kent
celebrated 40 years as our Grand Master on
14 June. This is a wonderful achievement
and we are all honoured that His Royal
Highness has done, and continues to do,
so much for the Craft and Royal Arch.
The Pro Grand Master’s speech at the
June Quarterly Communication emphasised
that this is an exciting time for Freemasonry.
Lord Northampton has launched several
initiatives, which will support our spirit
of openness and ensure the bright future of
the Masonry we so enjoy. The Pro Grand
Master spoke of the importance of openness
with family, non-Masons and potential
candidates. We are all the best people to
communicate our love of Masonry.
Interestingly, someone mentioned the
other day that if each of us proposed one
new candidate of quality in the next five
years,
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membership would cease to be an
issue. Finding new members is surely the
responsibility of all of us.
Provincial Information
Officers are
doing a very important job on the
communications front. In order to support
us all in communicating and the openness
that I have already referred to, the Pro
Grand Master is looking at our house
magazine, the websites and the production
of a DVD. We will keep you informed on
progress.
Later this year the Charities will all
be under one roof at Freemasons’ Hall.
Although the Charities are separate entities,
a new sense of belonging and unity will be
instilled. Talking about the Charities, the
Pro Grand Master announced the fantastic
news that recent Festivals had raised over
fourteen and a half million pounds. For
your interest this total was based on:
Yorkshire West Riding raising £5.02
million for the Grand Charity;
Somerset raising £3.56 million for the
Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution;
Cumberland and Westmorland raising
£2.05 million for the Royal Masonic
Trust for Girls and Boys;
Nottinghamshire raising £3.79 million
for the Masonic Samaritan Fund.
During my nearly twenty years as a
Mason, remembering that I am still secretary
of two Lodges and Scribe E of a Chapter, I
often wondered what Grand Lodge actually
did. I am now amazed at the sheer volume of
work that is tackled, with the minimum of
staff. Nevertheless, it is high on my agenda
to always improve our professionalism
and efficiency.
Did you know that it takes ten members
of staff two hours each morning just to sort
the post out so that it can go to the right
department? In addition to that there are
emails and telephone calls coming in all
day – and overnight! You need to know that
we treat everything as important and I thank
the staff so much for all they do for us all.
In fact, we are keen that you learn more
of each department’s work in future editions
of the house magazine.
Another fact I have learnt is the
enormous amount of time and effort
the Rulers give us. We have very strong
leadership and we can all be confident of
the future. The Grand Secretary also reports
to the
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V W Bro Nigel Brown,
Grand Secretary
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Board of General Purposes for the
Craft and the Committee of General
Purposes for the Royal Arch. Both the
Board and the Committee have the very
best of experts with great experience to
handle all the issues we face.
The Rulers are involved in visiting
the Provinces and Districts under our
jurisdiction, whether it be to install a new
Grand Master or Grand Superintendent,
attend festivals or annual meetings or an
unrelated visit to give support.
For example, the Pro Grand Master,
accompanied by the Grand Secretary,
attended the first of his Provincial meetings
at Sindlesham in May, with the remaining
three to be held in Manchester, Bristol and
Nottingham. At the end of these visits all
47 Provincial Grand Masters, or their
Deputies, will have attended.
The Pro Grand Master also mentioned
at the last Quarterly Communication that
he would be visiting our Districts in India at
the end of November and that the Assistant
Grand Master was attending the centenary
of the District Grand Lodge of Sri Lanka
and installing the new District Grand Master
and Grand Superintendent.
So, there is much exciting news and I
have only been able to give a flavour of some
of the areas our leaders are looking at. John
Hamill, our Director of Communications,
in the last issue of the magazine, ended one
of my quotes to him as saying “… but if
we do not make it an enjoyable experience
there seems little point in doing it”. I stand
by that – keep having fun!
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Copyright 2002-2007
MQ Magazine
Web site created by Mark Griffin
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